June 6: Senate passes budget; Hassan wields pen

A very busy week at the State House in Concord saw the Senate pass an $11.3 billion budget, while Gov. Maggie Hassan was busy with her pen, signing and vetoing legislation.

The Senate vote was strictly partisan — 14 Republicans for, 10 Democrats against — in the approval of its two-year spending package. At $11.3 billion, it is more than $11.2 billion approved by the GOP-dominated House, but less than the $11.5 billion budget that had been recommended by the Democratic governor.

Senate Finance chair Jeanie Forrester described the budget as “compassionate and conservative”.

But Hassan, while acknowledging the Senate budget as an improvement, said in a statement, “I continue to have serious concerns that the Senate’s plan is unbalanced and will hurt families, undermine business growth and take our economy backward. The plan includes large tax cuts that will create a hole in this budget and budgets well into the future and relies on gimmicks that will ultimately leave the budget unbalanced.”

The budget now goes to a Committee of Conference that includes House and Senate members for final consensus. Once the compromise version gets through the House and Senate it will go to Hassan for her consideration.

The current $10.7 billion budget expires on June 30. The new budget runs from July 1 to June 30, 2017.

See an NHPR story here.

Hassan signs and vetoes legisation

Gov. Hassan signed and vetoed a string of legislation this week.

She signed:

• HB 271, which provides easier access to Narcan, a drug that counteracts the effects of a heroin overdose. “The rising rate of heroin and opioid overdoses is one of the most pressing public health and safety challenges facing our state, and while we work to strengthen our prevention and treatment efforts through measures like our bipartisan health care expansion plan, we must also do everything that we can to save lives when an overdose takes place,” she said in a statement;

• HB 136, which prohibits anyone under 18 from using indoor tanning facilities. “It is clear that use of tanning beds, especially at young ages, increases the risk of developing skin cancer later in life. We must always be working to protect the health and safety of our young people, and by prohibiting minors from using tanning beds – just as we prohibit their use of alcohol and tobacco – we can help reinforce the fact that tanning poses serious health risks and decrease the risk of skin cancer for our younger generations,” she said in her statement.

She vetoed:

• HB 148, which limits the authority of New Hampshire delegates to a constitutional convention. In her veto message, she expressed concern about the limits placed on convention delegates, saying, “If similar restrictions had been in place during the original Constitutional Convention in 1787, our Founders may very well have never created the United States Constitution”;

• HB 151, which sought to establish a study committee on the end-to-life issue. She said she didn’t like the make-up of the proposed committee, but additional language in her veto message — when she said “that the goals of this bill begin to take New Hampshire down a precarious path’“ — make some people believe she is opposed to end-of-life measures;
• HB 122, which would have allowed the sale of alcoholic beverages with images of children on their labels. “In changing the way that we regulate, and in some cases loosening restrictions on referring to minors in the advertisement and sale of alcoholic beverages, House Bill 122 could undermine our efforts to prevent underage drinking,” said the governor in her veto message.

Hassan this week said she will sign SB 221, which allows Eversource to divest itself of some infrastructure and, according to the governor’s statement, “will help avoid protracted litigation, minimize impacts on ratepayers and allow us focus on building an energy future that is more innovative, reliable and affordable.”

Guinta’s deteriorating support

New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn has added her name to the list of prominent Republicans expressing no confidence in U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta as more information from the Federal Election Commission concerning his campaign contribution violation came to light.

Horn, in a letter to the party’s executive committee, said she doesn’t trust that Guinta has been telling the truth about a $355,000 campaign contribution in 2010 that Guinta says was a loan from his parents. The FEC found otherwise, saying the money was an illegal contribution. It fined him $15,000 and ordered him to repay the $355,000 to his parents.

Horn joins other Republicans U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Senate President Chuck Morse, House Speaker Shawn Jasper and others who have expressed concern and, in some cases, have called on Guinta to step down from his 1st Congressional District seat, something he has said he won’t do.

Over on our Facebook page this week, there’s lots of discussion about the senior photo of Belmont High School student Mackenzie Ranger that was taken with her son. There’s also a discussion about a possible matchup for U.S. Senate in 2016 between incumbent Republican Ayotte and Democrat Hassan.

See you next week.

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